A couple of days ago, on my German blog....I wrote up a piece on a developing show for the public TV system in Germany....called 'Germany Speaks'. The basic set-up of this is the belief by the leadership and intellectuals of Germany....that Germans can't come to a rational centerpoint on serious topics. Yes, they have the belief that you can produce a situation....a dozen facts....some argument, and then everyone would reach some basic conclusion (agreeable).
I kinda laughed when this was laid out because it means that both sides have to be tolerant of the topic and the outcome.
So the 23rd of September (Sunday) is the scheduled show. There are six topics. I imagine they will set aside roughly three hours on public TV that afternoon. They've put out surveys to poll people....in an attempt to bring in folks to some studio and discuss the issues.
All six topics are loaded. One of them is the intellectual idea being pushed by by various agenda groups to tax meat products more heavily....to persuade people to eat less meat. My brother.....the full-time engineer, part-time farmer....would likely ask what the heck they are smoking? How would adding a six or eight percent tax on T-bone....result in you eating less? German logic here....by intellectuals...is that anytime you tax something, people use less of it. It is basically true that the cost of living is now so high, that no one is much interested in having more than one or two kids, and a growing number of folks suggest no kids....so maybe the intellectuals have a small point on this.
But one of the six questions is this: is Trump good for America? Note, the question doesn't say good for Germans or for Germany.
The curious problem here for intellectuals in Germany....well....Hillary didn't win. Since November 2016, this has been a problem for them to accept and hour-by-hour, the Trump situation bothers them. Thanks to the use of public TV (ARD and ZDF)....they've kept their anxiety and stress at peak form (yes, 21 months straight now).
In some way, via this public forum, they hope to get the right discussion going and a large segment of German society (even the 30-odd percent who just don't think this is much of a thing to worry or have anxiety over) convinced to go one single direction.
My argument, if I got dragged into forum?
1. All elections, whether in the UK, Germany, France, Russia, or the US....have consequences. Someone wins....someone loses. In a democratic country with values....you kinda have to suck it up and move on with life.
2. This effort by the German public TV folks (ZDF and ARD) in early spring to do the comical news pieces on candidate Trump, and laugh over his speeches? Did you really think that made your viewers aware of the real situation developing in the US? Where did you get the update material? Washington Post, CNN?
3. After the summer smoke of 2016 cleared, and you (public German TV news) went on the remarkable news hype of a 90-percent of a Hillary win....how exactly do you think German viewers saw your coverage on the day after the election? Every single thing you predicted....failed. You couldn't even say why...other than suggesting that all these voters were 'stupid'? How 'stupid' does that make the public TV news media in Germany?
4. In the 500-plus days of the Trump administration and the three-million jobs created so far (anticipating another one-million additional jobs by spring 2019)....why did Bush or Obama not take the same route? Facts please. They each had eight years....yet they were not hyped up to do the job? Really?
5. After NAFTA went into affect, just how many US jobs left the US over the next decade? The general talk by business analysts goes between one and two million jobs. How do you think people remember the era? So when candidate Trump came around and discussed the terminal nature of NAFTA....people paid attention. Why didn't candidate Clinton discuss this? She had well over a year, and could not bring herself to talk about this problem.
6. The tariff woes? All President Trump laid out was a open path....no tariffs for any party. Ask the business folks of Germany (all industries) and the political folks....why they can't allow that to occur? If they can't explain this in one hundred words or less....you might need to fire them.
7. The American disconnect on the news media? From Republican voters, barely 15-percent think that the news media in the US is unbiased. From independent voters, it barely reaches 30-percent thinking they are unbiased. Even Democratic voters will agree only to around fifty-to-fifty-five percent of the news media is unbiased. Who reads the NY Times and Washington Post? Ask them what their current brand value is worth....on the last time they sold their operations. Who watches CNN? Right now....the Food Network is pulling in more viewers.
8. A disconnect on Washington solving problems? Here's the shocker....once you leave DC and go out into small towns and rural areas....the bulk of people tend to think that Washington is broken (they don't just mean the Democratic Party and the Republican Party....they mean the whole system). These people see Trump as a 'thug' against the entire system. They want the 'bull' turned loose in a crystal shop.
9. Go ask around what the 'red-pill' and '#walkaway' situations are about. These are former Democrats who are just fed-up and deciding on a new path as a Republican. How many? There's no real way to estimate this, but one might suggest a million-plus Hillary-voters from 2016....have walked away.
10. To the final emphasis here. A German doesn't need to worry much about this. In fact, to an American, it's odd that you want to drag this question up....instead of asking 'is Chancellor Merkel good for Germany'. The last time I looked....more than 60-percent of Germans polled....wanted a change in Chancellor. It's just odd how dramatic the public TV sector in Germany keeps wanting to hype the evil-Trump dialog....to keep focus on something else. You'd almost think.....well....that there was some stupid agenda tied to this forum question. Silly me....where would I get some crazy idea like that?
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